Patient Stories

In March 2022, while going about my everyday activities, I suddenly experienced extreme breathlessness. It felt like someone had hit me, and my heart was beating out of my chest.    I’m a single parent, and my then –7-year-old found me on the bed. There was no ambulance available to get to me; I was told…

In December of 2022, I had surgery on my femur. Five days later, I felt an excruciating pain in my calf and knew something was wrong. I went to the ER and was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) that occluded almost my whole leg. I was prescribed  blood thinners and I’ve been taking them…

My blood clot story started at a time that should’ve been the happiest of our lives — we had just become a family of four! A few days after giving birth to our second child, I developed a severe headache.   Unfortunately, at the ER, I was misdiagnosed and treated for post-partum pre-eclampsia. After a few…

I was diagnosed with COVID in February of 2020 and had severe symptoms, including extremely painful breathing.   I developed an internal jugular vein thrombosis (IJVT)  in my neck during the initial COVID-19 infection. I had symptoms from the IJVT for two years, but it wasn’t discovered until I had a transient ischemic attack (TIA), which…

In November of 2021, I had COVID and was down and out for two weeks. As I was starting to feel better, pain began developing in my left leg. At first, I thought I was dehydrated or lacking protein.    Two days went by. My left leg was twice the size of my right leg, and…

My cousin, who was 22, died of a pulmonary embolism when I was 10 years old. At autopsy, she was found to have protein C resistance, explained by the factor V Leiden mutation. As this mutation is genetic, the whole family was tested. I was found to be a carrier of this mutation, and I…

Update (July 29, 2024): I was excited to make my professional triathlon debut in Maine this past weekend, competing as the only athlete in the field with Factor V and needing to take blood thinners twice a day. It was a non-wetsuit swim, and I was really happy with my bike split on one of…

I have always been a relatively active person, and I participated in kickboxing and powerlifting.   It was 2020 and I was one month away from my 30th birthday, doing jump squats in my living room due gyms closed by COVID. I felt a pain in my left hip and thought I pulled a muscle.   …

My name is Katie, and I am Jordan’s widow. He and I were married for 12 years. Jordan died unexpectedly of a massive pulmonary embolism (PE) on July 8, 2020.   He survived his first unprovoked deep vein thrombosis (DVT) to PE in October 2019. He ignored symptoms of right thigh pain, swelling, redness, and warmth.…

When I was eight months pregnant, my grandmother passed away. My blood pressure began to spike, and I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension.     I ended up being induced at 37 weeks in order to keep the baby safe. The night I delivered my daughter, my dad went into cardiac arrest. He passed away a week…